Can you believe 1334 coins in one spot?

[KingTotsalot]

That's not a typo! I was on my way home from some totyard hunts with a fairly decent day for me...around $3.00 in clad, when I decided to stop at a defunct fast food restaurant to search the grass and flower beds. Found 1 clad dime at the back of the business in the grass, nada in the back flower beds, and went to the street front flower bed. Started on the left side and got not one hit, and when I got to the right side, my MD went berserk!

I backed off and tried it again in another spot nearby, and SAME THING! Then I noticed some bare ground, no grass or plants and bent over and saw about a dozen coins laying on the surface!
So I picked them up and swung the detector again, and same thing again!

I sat down on the ground, laid my detector with the coil next to me and started to dig with my Fiskar composite scoop...first scoop 6 coins! second scoop 4 coins! WTH! I began to dig and pass the scoop by the coil again and again, dropping the coins I recovered into my belt pack. I wore myself out doing this in an hour and a half! I had a nearly full pack! So I covered the hole I had dug with a piece of cardboard and kicked some gravel I had dug back in the hole. After the first kick, I looked down and there were 5 coins on the ground where I had kicked! I picked them up and kicked again and saw 4 more! Got them! And then I finished with my hole camo. This was on a friday afternoon. I got home with my first batch of coins and washed them. They were packed in gravel and the pennies were fairly corroded and all the other clad was copper colored due to the amount of copper dissolved in the soil!

I was covered up with other things to do on Saturday, and had a fitful night's sleep because I had to wait it out until after Church on Sunday and after some chores with a friend who came over, I finally got free around 4:30 pm so I ate a snack and went back to the site. No one had tampered with it, thank goodness!

This time I worked at enlarging my hole from the initial dig of 18 X 18 X 10 inches and eventually ended up with the hole being 24 X 24 X 10 inches. I discovered the coins were mostly confined to a 6 inch layer of washed pea gravel, and just rolled out of it as I scratched through it. The floor of the deposit of gravel was a tan clean sand. I dug for 2 hours and had more coins in my bag than the first dig on it.

This morning I went back and got 20 minutes on it at daybreak before a co-worker called me and asked me to pick him up to go by the office. Sadly I broke off after only finding 55 cents in coins in 20 minutes on the site. But after work I went by and hit it for another hour and 10 minutes, and have finally cleaned it out. I followed that gravel out in all directions until it stopped against sand and the topsoil and mulch on top. Got very few hits with my MD as I wrapped up the dig, and picked a few coins off the pile of stuff I had previously dug out of the hole. They evidently had slipped by me on their way past the coil.

I am presently cleaning all this up, probably at least a weeks worth of tumbling for the pennies. And in all these coins, today in what I collected on the final dig phase, I got my FIRST Wheatie dated in the 40s!

Now to the speculation! At first I thought I might be on a coy pond or wishing well, but I have eaten at a lot of this company's fast food places down through the years and never saw either at their establishments. So I scratched that off the possibilities. The newest coin I found so far in my cleaning is a 2007, so that dates the "horde" to at least that year for its deposition. The restaurant was built that year, I believe, and went out of business early in 2010. This site is not a register dump as they were well mixed with the gravel and present from the top of it to the bottom. No sign of a plastic or cloth bag and they were scattered through the gravel, not in just one spot like a bag drop or quart fruit jar. Also very minimal broken glass was present and the few pieces of glass I saw were green like a 7UP bottle, not clear like a fruit jar. I have my own speculation that I toss out now as my working theory until something better comes along.

Since this was confined to a flower bed, I think they were within the pea gravel used by the landscapers. I suspect they recycled the gravel from a coy pond or wishing well. The coins and gravel must have been dirty with sediment or fish poo to the point that the landscaper thought it would be a good source of natural fertilizer. Anyway, they made the deposit of gravel and coins, and then planted some bushes on it and finally scattered mulch over the entire bed. That way no one ever saw the coins while the business was in operation. But, the zincolns began to react, perhaps when the landscaper either mixed or sprayed some fertilizer on the beds. Soon, enough copper was mobilized to kill the plantings. After they died, the proprietor pulled them up and planted some flowers in the mulch. I found one very dwarfed petunia still hanging on, but in sorry shape probably due to copper poisoning!

When I came across the site, the hard winter had killed most surviving plants and the early spring rains had washed a lot of the mulch off portions of the bed, exposing the gravel and the coins I first saw on the surface.

Anywho, this is my first significant find and was double the total $$ value of what I had found in the previous 7 weeks! Also ran my coin total up to like 5 times what it was! LOL

I would love to hear if anyone, short of someone in Europe, has ever found a "horde" or "drop" this large in the USA, particularly of clad coins that were in the ground....oh, there was also one token in the find...it said NO DOLLAR VALUE () on one side and has a nice eagle embossed on the other side, but no business name.

Once I get everything cleaned up, I will take a pic and do my best to post it in here, but it may be several weeks with all the pennies I got to tumble in my small tumbler!

I will try and post, when I have them, pics of the dig, my "reclamation efforts", and the entire batch of coins! Hopefully the moderator can help me if I hit a snag!

Thanks for taking the time to read my entire story! Sorry it is so long but wanted to get all the details in.

[BluegrassJames]

Pictures?

[Captain Silver]

And you have just proved it! WTG!

[samatwwe]

That is incredible! Did someone drop their loot on the way to coinstar?

[DaCapt]

Great story!! Congrats! HH!

[xlogit3k]

Originally Posted by newbieshooter

That's not a typo! I was on my way home from some totyard hunts with a fairly decent day for me...around $3.00 in clad, when I decided to stop at a defunct fast food restaurant to search the grass and flower beds. Found 1 clad dime at the back of the business in the grass, nada in the back flower beds, and went to the street front flower bed. Started on the left side and got not one hit, and when I got to the right side, my MD went berserk!

I backed off and tried it again in another spot nearby, and SAME THING! Then I noticed some bare ground, no grass or plants and bent over and saw about a dozen coins laying on the surface!
So I picked them up and swung the detector again, and same thing again!

I sat down on the ground, laid my detector with the coil next to me and started to dig with my Fiskar composite scoop...first scoop 6 coins! second scoop 4 coins! WTH! I began to dig and pass the scoop by the coil again and again, dropping the coins I recovered into my belt pack. I wore myself out doing this in an hour and a half! I had a nearly full pack! So I covered the hole I had dug with a piece of cardboard and kicked some gravel I had dug back in the hole. After the first kick, I looked down and there were 5 coins on the ground where I had kicked! I picked them up and kicked again and saw 4 more! Got them! And then I finished with my hole camo. This was on a friday afternoon. I got home with my first batch of coins and washed them. They were packed in gravel and the pennies were fairly corroded and all the other clad was copper colored due to the amount of copper dissolved in the soil!

I was covered up with other things to do on Saturday, and had a fitful night's sleep because I had to wait it out until after Church on Sunday and after some chores with a friend who came over, I finally got free around 4:30 pm so I ate a snack and went back to the site. No one had tampered with it, thank goodness!

This time I worked at enlarging my hole from the initial dig of 18 X 18 X 10 inches and eventually ended up with the hole being 24 X 24 X 10 inches. I discovered the coins were mostly confined to a 6 inch layer of washed pea gravel, and just rolled out of it as I scratched through it. The floor of the deposit of gravel was a tan clean sand. I dug for 2 hours and had more coins in my bag than the first dig on it.

This morning I went back and got 20 minutes on it at daybreak before a co-worker called me and asked me to pick him up to go by the office. Sadly I broke off after only finding 55 cents in coins in 20 minutes on the site. But after work I went by and hit it for another hour and 10 minutes, and have finally cleaned it out. I followed that gravel out in all directions until it stopped against sand and the topsoil and mulch on top. Got very few hits with my MD as I wrapped up the dig, and picked a few coins off the pile of stuff I had previously dug out of the hole. They evidently had slipped by me on their way past the coil.

I am presently cleaning all this up, probably at least a weeks worth of tumbling for the pennies. And in all these coins, today in what I collected on the final dig phase, I got my FIRST Wheatie dated in the 40s!

Now to the speculation! At first I thought I might be on a coy pond or wishing well, but I have eaten at a lot of this company's fast food places down through the years and never saw either at their establishments. So I scratched that off the possibilities. The newest coin I found so far in my cleaning is a 2007, so that dates the "horde" to at least that year for its deposition. The restaurant was built that year, I believe, and went out of business early in 2010. This site is not a register dump as they were well mixed with the gravel and present from the top of it to the bottom. No sign of a plastic or cloth bag and they were scattered through the gravel, not in just one spot like a bag drop or quart fruit jar. Also very minimal broken glass was present and the few pieces of glass I saw were green like a 7UP bottle, not clear like a fruit jar. I have my own speculation that I toss out now as my working theory until something better comes along.

Since this was confined to a flower bed, I think they were within the pea gravel used by the landscapers. I suspect they recycled the gravel from a coy pond or wishing well. The coins and gravel must have been dirty with sediment or fish poo to the point that the landscaper thought it would be a good source of natural fertilizer. Anyway, they made the deposit of gravel and coins, and then planted some bushes on it and finally scattered mulch over the entire bed. That way no one ever saw the coins while the business was in operation. But, the zincolns began to react, perhaps when the landscaper either mixed or sprayed some fertilizer on the beds. Soon, enough copper was mobilized to kill the plantings. After they died, the proprietor pulled them up and planted some flowers in the mulch. I found one very dwarfed petunia still hanging on, but in sorry shape probably due to copper poisoning!

When I came across the site, the hard winter had killed most surviving plants and the early spring rains had washed a lot of the mulch off portions of the bed, exposing the gravel and the coins I first saw on the surface.

Anywho, this is my first significant find and was double the total $$ value of what I had found in the previous 7 weeks! Also ran my coin total up to like 5 times what it was! LOL

I would love to hear if anyone, short of someone in Europe, has ever found a "horde" or "drop" this large in the USA, particularly of clad coins that were in the ground....oh, there was also one token in the find...it said NO DOLLAR VALUE () on one side and has a nice eagle embossed on the other side, but no business name.

Once I get everything cleaned up, I will take a pic and do my best to post it in here, but it may be several weeks with all the pennies I got to tumble in my small tumbler!

I will try and post, when I have them, pics of the dig, my "reclamation efforts", and the entire batch of coins! Hopefully the moderator can help me if I hit a snag!

Thanks for taking the time to read my entire story! Sorry it is so long but wanted to get all the details in.

Well how much was it lol?

[zeemang]

Now THAT'S a sweet spot!

[snf101480]

Great job on cleaning that place out! I'm looking forward to seeing the pics!

[dogpound]

nice score..........were there any pieces of a broken piggy bank mixed in there

[DirtyRob]

Now I call that padding your stats! COOL!

[KingTotsalot]

LOL Total find was 24.80 in value, 12.00 of it was zincons!

I reclaimed the hole this morning on the way to work. We are due for several days of heavy rains and I am hoping to get by there again when it dries out a little to see if any I missed washed out on to the surface.

And no pieces of a piggy bank, either! HA HA

[cigarmike]

Now that's a cache find. LOL. Congrats on all the CLAD.

[Hoze513]

Wow thats a lot of coins and a lot of digging. Geat job.

[KingTotsalot]

I am still cleaning on the pennies, 4th tumbler load is running now. Still one left, but I did get all the nickels, dimes and quarters cleaned. And it is amazing...there was so much copper in solution from those zincons corroding that all the clad and nickels are copper colored! They got plated!

We had heavy rains last night, aside from near by tornadoes, and heavy rains today. I ran by there on my way home from choir practise and picked up 4 additional coins off the surface of my backfill! Looks like I will have to be checking this spot occassionally before any veggies grow back on it. I got pics of the spot but will wait to post them until I have all the coins cleaned so I can include pics of the total package!

Uggg, my hands smell like copper metal from messing with all those rotten pennies! If I had found this site before I joined the Forum, I would have chosen Zincoln Pirate as my nomiker!

[Bonesquat]

Originally Posted by DirtyRob

Now I call that padding your stats! COOL!

Yep he's totally stat padding. H4x0r$.....

[midwest]

Stat padding? Explain, please.

[SeabeeRon]

Hitting a find like that is what keeps us swinging the coil!!

[NCBounty15]

Wow, now that is quite a find! Congrats!!

Originally Posted by mbustin

Stat padding? Explain, please.

Basically, his signature says somewhere around 1800 coins found to date. Point blank, this figure sounds quite impressive; however, when one hears that approximately 1300 of these coins came from basically the same hole, well.....that's stat (statistics) padding. HH
NC

[mgo]

Thats amazing! I think you theory on how they got there sounds like the most plausible.....

[FelixtheCat]

Newbieshooter - Way to go on your luck and persistence at getting it all!
When you tumble your coins separate the pennies from everything else so that you don't discolor the silvers.